Facing two schools from California last week, the University of Wisconsin men's basketball team (2-1) earned a split after defeating UC-Santa Barbara (1-1) 72-61 Tuesday, and getting manhandled by Pepperdine in Malibu, Calif., 75-61, late Saturday night.
It was raining threes Tuesday night at the Kohl Center as the Badgers won their 30th straight home game.
Behind four threes from both senior forward Zach Morley and senior guard Clayton Hanson, the Badgers battled through both zone and man-to-man defenses to get past a short-handed yet pesky Gauchos squad.
\They were patient offensively, disciplined offensively, the way they exploit you defensively-they are very sound,"" UC-Santa Barbara Head Coach Bob Williams said.
Hanson scored a team-high 18 points on 7-of-9 shooting, including 4 of 6 from beyond the arc. Morley scored 14 points on 4-of-7 shooting, 4 of 6 from three-point range. Sophomore forward Alando Tucker added 16 points and seven rebounds.
The two senior roommates Morley and Hanson stood out in the game and were able to make their impacts in different spurts-Morley in the first half off the bench and Hanson to start the second half-but both at critical junctures in the contest.
With UW struggling to find any consistency on the offensive end, Ryan went to his bench early looking for a spark and got one in Morley. Following nearly a four-minute drought early in the game, Morley stepped in and connected on his first three-point shot to give UW a 5-2 edge.
After UC-Santa Barbara forced a turnover and connected on a bucket in return to cut UW's lead to 10-9, Morley stepped up again and knocked down back-to-back trifectas in a one-minute span to maintain the Badgers' slim lead. Later in the half he connected on his fourth attempt and finished the first 20 minutes with 12 points on 4-of-5 shooting from downtown. He also snagged five of the Badgers' 11 first-half rebounds.
""I love how feisty he is, the way he played the game. He's scrappy, balanced,"" Williams said. ""In terms of his game, he can take you off the dribble, he can score inside a little bit, and he'll hit the open shot.""
Right away to start the second half, Hanson started doing what he does best-hitting the open shot. Barely more than a minute into the second period, with the help of solid passes from the Badgers' big men, Hanson connected on his first two attempts of the half and in the process helped build UW's lead to double-digits for the first time all game.
Within the first four minutes of the second period, the senior guard connected on three of four shots and clearly generated the momentum UW needed to separate itself from the squad from California. Wisconsin led by as many as 17 points in the second half but needed Hanson's three with 4:04 left to silence a UC-Santa Barbara run, giving the Badgers a 66-56 lead.
""He got open and in basketball, you don't get open that often,"" Ryan said. ""But that was when the older guys used the ball fakes, turned the ball either through the post or through the top and moving it before the defender could get to him. So the credit goes to the other four jerseys that worked the ball and got it to him when he was wide open. That was the key.""
Wisconsin shot 56.3 percent from the field and 44.4 percent from downtown. As a team the Badgers hoisted 18 three-point attempts, but only Hanson and Morley, who were each 4 of 6, had any success.
The Badgers were unable to maintain this strong shooting when they hit the road over the weekend for the first time this season and subsequently tallied their first loss of the year.
After a heated first half, in which the Badgers battled from nine behind to tie the score at 34 entering halftime, the Waves of Pepperdine blew the Badgers out of the water with a 25-4 run to start the second half.
Combined with the atrocious shooting of UW in the second half (32 percent on eight of 25 shooting), Pepperdine outscored UW 41-27 over the final 20 minutes en route to a 14-point victory.
Despite another solid performance from Tucker-18 points on nine of 11 shooting and seven rebounds-the Badgers shot themselves in the feet throughout, accumulating 22 turnovers in the game-an uncharacteristically sloppy trend of the Badgers thus far this season.
Senior forward Mike Wilkinson coughed the ball up seven times in the game but also tallied four of UW's seven assists. Sophomore guard Kammron Taylor was the only other Badger who scored in double figures as he added 15 points.
""I think it's a wake-up call,"" Tucker said. ""We played two games at home and now all the new guys, the guys that didn't get a lot of time, realize that we've still got a lot to work on.""
The Badgers will look to get back in the win column as they take part in the Big Ten-ACC Challenge Tuesday night and play host to Maryland.
--The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel contributed to this report.
